What's it all about?

"So what's this story about?" you ask.

"Avoiding TPK is like my ideal D&D game." I reply. "It's got ideal players, ideal characters, and an ideally perfect DM who can come up with things on the fly that I have to agonise over for hours to write."

"Is it difficult to write in the dialogue format all the time?"

"I have made some stylistic decisions in order to write what I think works in context, but it does seem a bit awkward in the written medium. In particular, the decision to make all of the dialogue the words of the players. I had to decide how to handle when they were speaking in character. The decision I made was not to nest quotes, but to simply report directly what the player is saying. In a few places this makes some awkward sentences."

"That was a deliberate decision?" you ask.

"Yes," I reply. "I wanted it to be different in style from what writers usually use as fictional fluff text in rulebooks. I'm glad they don't do that much of it in 5th Edition. It annoys me, because neither the players nor the DM act like people. I hope that my players largely act like people." I look towards the camera.

"Secondly, though it is clear that the party is playing 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons from Wizards of the Coast, it is my intention to report only the interactions between the characters and the DM and not the minutiae about rolls and bonuses and specific rules. All players are assumed to have a perfect recall of the rules and there is no need to discuss them at the table. This may put off some of the hardcore roleplayers, but my intent is to be more accessible to people who aren't as familiar with the rules, and for whom therefore a long discussion of the rules is somewhat boring. All properties of Wizards remain properties of Wizards."

"Until the party steals it from them," you say.

"Until the party steals it from them," I reply. "But after that, they have lawyers." I look back at you.

"In addition, this "ideal" D&D game contains no out of character table talk. That again was a narrative decision. While a lot of table talk goes on at a real D&D table, and that is entirely appropriate and normal, I felt that it would merely distract from the story I wanted to tell here."